They had the shot but failed to execute. They could have dropped him easily when he was 15-20’ from the female. Then the leftist would all say LAPD was reckless, racist and blood thirsty for shooting a guy who was actually backing up from them while holding a knife. He was backing off! He didn’t lunge at them!
Bet on it.
You really don’t know when to quit, do you? “Critical thinking” is just plain stupidity when you miss the obvious: they did not need to fire 18 shots.
You are correct. This was a screw up in so many ways.